A Model for Creating Change

So how does one create change in a large system, when resistance to change is so profound?

I would point to two successful methods in education that have implications for the larger public policy discussion on 'how to fix our broken culture'.

Dropping Out of the System

The first is unschooling, open schooling or free schooling. There's significant overlap between these methods.

Open School: A school where curriculum is generated on an irregular basis, depending on the availability of learning opportunities and the interests of those involved. Marked by a strong appreciation for community resources and immense flexibility.

"Open schools (otherwise known as Informal Schools or Open Classrooms) operate under the central theory that children want to learn and will do so naturally if left to their own initiative. The open classroom is marked by learning areas, often without walls. Students are free to move from area to area, learn at their own pace and enjoy unstructured periods of study." Source

Free School: A school where students are entirely self-motivated, directed by teachers only when the students initiate the conversation.

"An anarchist free school, sometimes spelled free skool, can be a decentralized network in which skills, information, and knowledge are shared without heirarchy or the institutional environment of formal schooling. The open structure of this type of free school is intended to encourage self-reliance, critical consciousness, and personal development." Source

Unschooling: Unschooling tends to define its curricula in opposition to modern schools.

"(R)efers to a range of educational philosophies and practices centering around allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including child directed play, game play, household responsibilities, and social interaction, rather than through the confines of a conventional school. Exploration of activities is often led by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child." Source

These educational philosophies can be employed in small-to-medium sized schools, or through homeschooling. This is one way of creating change -- by dropping out of the system, and ignoring the dominant propaganda model.

The benefit to this method is that change can be immediate, which is very important when the welfare of a child is at stake. Particularly at an early age, modern educational methods can be very hard on a child's emotional and psychological well-being.

The drawback to this method is that it doesn't create change in the larger society; it's relatively invisible. Most people have never heard of the Sudbury Valley School, and tend to regard homeschoolers as kooky religious extremists.

Creating Change Within the System

Another method for creating change is to support alternative schools and charter schools, which exist within the educational bureaucracy.

These alternatives were generally created to serve the needs of at-risk students, but once they proved themselves as effective (and uncontroversial) many charter and alternative schools were allowed to begin recruiting from the general student population.

Alternative School: Defined by some degree of deviation from traditional education. Alternative schools may be very similar to traditional schools, or significantly more student-centered (with students choosing the curriculum).

Charter School: A school defined by charter to meet specific goals. A charter school is its own district/administration, and can be dissolved if it fails to meet its goals.

Not all alternative schools and charter schools are worth supporting, but many are. They may not represent as radical a change as a homeschool employing experiential learning methods (get the child out into the world to experience and learn from it), but many parents and students aren't ready for that kind of a break from the status quo. A school that looks fairly traditional, but employs student-centered education methods is a substantial improvement over the status quo.

In terms of supporting these schools, here's an excerpt from an earlier post:

"The first, and perhaps most important thing is to stop increasing the regulations on our schools. The progressive increase in paperwork, testing, and restrictions on curriculum are stifling innovation. Another important change would be to allow for more experimental schools within the charter school and contract school movement. As these schools are contractually obligated to achieve certain goals or face disillusion, they are already being held to higher standards than most schools are. Allowing for change and experimentation within the auspices of an existing contract is an excellent way to test out the validity of novel educational practices. If these practices are not beneficial to students, they will be closed either due to lack of students or a failure to meet their contractual obligations."

Allowing experimental schools to be exempt from existing regulations as long as their results meet certain benchmarks relevant to genuine student learning would (eventually) create a revolution in education. This was proven to be an effective way of promoting student learning 66 years ago.

Another excerpt:

"All of these changes require some degree of long-term planning. They presuppose a system of smaller schools within a larger system of choice. Within this system, revenues should follow the students, allowing for parental choice in which schools should remain open and fully-funded. These changes also presuppose a tolerance for diversity within the structure. A diversity of educational practices, within a system of choice, would do much more to benefit student learning than any new regulations from the Department of Education."

The other way to support these experimental schools would be to allow for complete student/parent choice in selecting a school. Only a minority of families would make this choice initially. However, as experimental techniques became more commonplace in the community and as the alternative methods of education were shown to be effective, then the number of families making this choice would increase over time.

The disadvantage of this method (change within the existing system) is that it's slow. It would take a decade or two for changes to really begin to manifest themselves within the system.

The advantage to this method, however, is that it has the potential to create large-scale change.

Public Policy Implications

This piece demonstrates an effective way to create change within a broken system.

1. Work to create alternative agencies, bureaucracies and programs within the larger system. It is critical that the method used to evaluate these experimental programs be based on genuine, real-world values like "clean water" and "kids who can read and write coherently". Standard evaluation methods are rigged to support the status quo, and were created to prevent radical change from occurring.

Being held accountable to standards is essential for any government program these days, but these standards must reflect real-world concerns.

2. Change the policy/law to allow community members to voluntarily choose these experimental programs, and that public dollars follow. This will seldom happen all at once; it is better to lobby for exemptions for underserved community groups like single mothers, at-risk students or convicted felons. These underserved communities tend to be invisible, and can provide cover for a nascent experimental program (few school administrators spend a lot of time thinking about the welfare of students who have failed 3 or more classes). However, attempting to allow 'the money to follow the community member' will be fought tooth-and-nail if it is not initially limited to an at-risk group.

3. The propaganda model is challenged by this approach because:

(a) The experimental program is being held to standards. It's difficult to argue against students who read and write 3 grade levels above the norm.

(b) Trying something new on an at-risk group isn't very controversial, and the experimental program can be shut down if it doesn't comport to established standards.

4. Once these experimental programs have proven themselves to be effective, and have created loyalty among one or more communities, then the programs can expand beyond serving at-risk groups and become models for other experimental programs. "You see? It worked over in Rochester, it can work here too!". The longer-term policy goal is to promote the creation of many small, experimental programs that provide an alternative to the status quo -- and eventually defund it.

These new programs don't have to co-opt a significant amount of resources; in fact, it's better that they fly under the radar screen for a few years. Once a critical mass of evidence in support of the program's effectiveness is generated, and enough community members are in support of the program to help lobby for it, then the experimental program can be expanded.

The trick is to find a crack in the door, and to slowly jiggle it open. Every system has vulnerabilities, and every system has communities that it underserves. These underserved communities are weak points in the propaganda model.

These weak points are the place to drive the wedge.